Vayeishev 5775:         It’s Only Fitting

By Rabbi Joshua (orthopedically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

As Yosef approaches his brothers in Shechem, they devise a plan to have him sold into slavery, and to tell Yaakov that he had been devoured by a wild beast. Ostensibly, this planned statement was an outright lie. However, Rav Shlomo Ganzfried, in his Sefer Aperion, offers a homiletical explanation by which the statement could be interpreted differently, so that, although deceptive, it was not necessarily a complete falsehood. He cites the commentary Binah Le’Itim, which says that someone who does not guard his tongue is akin to a wild beast, so that Yosef, who brought evil reports of his brothers to Yaakov, was, in their eyes, a wild beast, and thus responsible for his own predicament. 

Based on this explanation, Rav Ganzfried goes on to explain a midrash, based on the first verse in this week’s haftarah and brought in Targum Yonasan ben Uziel. In this verse, the prophet Amos says that God will not forgive Yisroel for selling a tzadik, a righteous man, for silver, and a destitute man for shoes. The midrash says that what this means is that the brothers used the money they received for Yosef to buy shoes. Why shoes? Rav Ganzfried cites the Maharshal, Rav Shlomo Luria, who says that the morning blessing of “sheasah li kol tzorki,” thanking God for providing us with all our needs, is said when we put our shoes on to demonstrate man’s predominance over animals, from whose skin shoes are made. By purchasing shoes with the money they received for Yosef, the brothers were indicating their conviction that Yosef, who did not guard his tongue, was on a level no higher than an animal, and perhaps even lower.

On a more basic, p'shat level, Shadal, R. Shmuel Dovid Luzzatto, based on the Rashbam’s approach to the sale of Yosef, finds another way to lessen the apparent dishonesty of the bothers. According to the Rashbam the brothers did not actually sell Yosef into slavery. After casting him into the pit, they moved away a distance and ate a meal. When they returned, Yosef was gone and they did not know what had happened to him. Accordingly, says Shadal, when they said that he had been devoured by a wild beast, they thought that, in fact, that had occurred. 

Following Shadal, we can explain the image of the brothers buying shoes. My teacher Rav Aharon Soloveitchik, zt”l, said that shoes represent the ability to adapt to new circumstances. Shoes allow a person to walk on otherwise rough, dangerous terrain. The callous attitude of the brothers to their brother pleading for his life from the pit demonstrated that they had adapted themselves to the new social dynamic they had created through the way they had decided to deal with Yosef, and carry on with their lives without him. 

Rabbi Hoffman is still being treated. Please continue to have him in mind in your prayers, among the other ill of Israel.